Monthly Archives: May 2018

15 posts

Making a Carmel Point

poetry reading poetry

Back in the day, before wildfires and mudslides, people went to California to “find themselves.” If you’re feeling lost or want to turn a new page, you can always turn to Robinson Jeffers’ poetry, much of which finds itself in California.

For example, here’s a quick trip to Carmel Point for you:

 

Carmel Point
by Robinson Jeffers

The extraordinary patience of things!
This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses—
How beautiful when we first beheld it,
Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads—
Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.—As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.

 

And so we move to the left coast with a bit of imagery: “Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs; / No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing, / Or a few milch cows rubbing they flanks on the outcrop rockheads.”

Very nice, even if you do have to look up what a “milch cow” is (it’s a cow kept for milking).

“Now the spoiler has come: does it care?” We’d better go shopping at Antecedents R Us! For the “spoiler” in Jefferson’s line, let’s nominate mankind, and for “it,” we’ll take Carmel Point itself, with its clean cliffs and such.

To Jeffers’ great comfort, nature couldn’t care less about the invasion of man. “It has all time. It knows the people are a tide / That swells and in time will ebb, and all / Their works dissolve.”

Geez, I’m feeling salty already. And I’d like to be there to see it, actually. But I think I’ve already missed the “California, Heaven on Earth” party. It’s too bad, too. The way we were sounds pretty cool.

Random Thoughts: Memorial Day Weekend Edition

blathering comma mine Lost Sherpa of Happiness opinion poetry random thoughts

  • Memorial Day Weekend. It gets quiet around here. People leave for the Cape. First, for the stop-and-go traffic heading to the Cape. Eventually for the stop-and-go traffic returning from the Cape. All this for sand in your bathing suit and a sunburn.
  • Nota bene: You can get sunburned on your back patio. No gas, no traffic, no sand reading True Grit in your bathing suit. Free, free, free!
  • In the past year, Poetry magazine has had issues featuring poets from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and more, greatly increasing a poet from those countries’ chances of publication (from 1 in 1,000,000,000 to 1 in 1,000) in a particular issue. I’m waiting for Poetry to dedicate an issue to Irish-Polish-Scottish-English poets. As Robert Frost once said, “Advantages make good neighbors.”
  • Speaking of Poetry, I seem to read the covers more than the insides of the covers lately, and I’m a big fan of their recent trend of designing every cover around variations of design and color for letters in the word POETRY. When I’m tired (read: frequently), I look at it and get mixed results: Edgar Allan POE, pot, try, port, opt, rope, toe, top. What I don’t see but should: STOP!
  • Statistical quirk #1: Maybe The Evil Empire (read: Google) has made my post called “W.S. Merwin’s ‘Remembering Summer'” one of its top links for searchers on their search engine. Hits on this blog have been mounting like stop-and-go traffic for the Cape lately because of it. (Could this mean Darth Vader is my father?)
  • Statistical quirk #2: According to The Almost-As-Evil Empire (read: Amazon) stats under Books>Literature & Fiction>Poetry>Regional & Cultural>United States, sales for Lost Sherpa of Happiness have jumped from 176,098 to 15,754 in recent weeks. Maybe my poems have finally arrived, finally been discovered by some for-hire sherpa. Or maybe I need to be pinched: I woke up as W.S. Merwin. In a Google Search algorithm. With a hot new book of poetry.
  • Sad how death can push book sales. I’m thinking of Philip Roth, who died last week. Incredibly, I’ve only read one of this books (Goodbye, Columbus), and that some 30 years ago. After reading many articles of praise after his death, I have vowed to read the first Zuckerman book, The Ghost Writer.
  • Speaking of reading, after years and years of doing so, I no longer read one book at a time. My new modus operandi is to have one prose book and one poetry book going at all times. Poets read poetry. Every day. They write them, too. Bad or good. Every day.
  • We are less than a month away from the summer solstice on June 21st. Here’s what’s weird about that day: It’s the longest day of the year, BUT it’s also called “Midsummer Night” by the dreamers (and bards) of the world as if it’s the height and not the start of summer.
  • Irony: Most school kids are just getting out of school for a summer vacation where the days are already beginning to get shorter, giving validity to my mother-in-law’s famous line, “It’s all downhill after the Fourth of July.” She was a teacher. She knew of what she spoke.
  • I met a friend last week who told me his strategy when reading the news these days. He skips any article with the word “Trump” in the headline. “I haven’t missed anything,” he said. “Really! It’s all smoke and mirrors on that front.” (Editor’s Note: And a few other things.)
  • As a reader and a poet, don’t you always keep thinking there are writers of prose and verse you have yet to discover, ones who will really resonate with you, ones whose words will become your soul brothers (and sisters), ones who will become your favorites forever and ever? This is a necessary hope in every reader’s life.
  • While reading Karl Ove Knausgaard’s Spring a few weeks back, I noticed his recommendation of Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees and picked a copy up. I love it when favorite writers recommend favorite books, don’t you?
  • Because it is the last standing brick and mortar bookstore for millions of people living far away from the independent Mom & Pop bookstores of the cities, Barnes & Noble needs your support (read: orders) every once in a while. Where would you be without their bookstores to walk in and browse in every once in a while? (Rhetorical question)
  • Because it’s Memorial Day weekend, a time to remember fallen soldiers who fought and died for their country, we should reflect on George McGovern’s quote about unjust wars (and boy, do they exist, then and now): “I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
  • For those of you wondering (all one of you), I am 33 poems into Manuscript #3 (a.k.a. Work in Progress).
  • I’ve noticed that my taste for reading poems that fit on one page is reflected in my habit of writing poems that fit on one page. When I see an 8-page poem in a book, I tend to say, “Hoo-boy!” then take a deep breath before diving in, hoping to come up for breath at the other end of the Olympic-sized swimming pool.
  • Sometimes I come up halfway across.
  • So there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!

Man + Machine = Poetry

poetry reading poetry

Joyce Sutphen likes to write about country life, specifically farm life, and I like to read poems about country life, farm life included. This poem, “H,” is about man’s best friend, the machine. Surely to a farmer, the old tractor wins out over the old dog. (Hey, life can be ruff sometimes.) Let’s see how it’s done:

 

“H”
by Joyce Sutphen

Of all the tractors, I love the “H” the best:
first for its proportions, the ratio of body to machine,
arm to wheel, leg to clutch, hand to throttle,

and for the way it does not drown the voice,
but forces it to rise above the engine,
and for the smoke signaling from the silver pipe,

for the rip-rap of tread on the big tires, driver
perched between them, as on a throne in kingdoms of oats
and corn, scrolling along the meadow’s edge,

then sometimes standing still, engine turning the belt
that turned the wheels in the hammer mill
or whirling the gears that divided the oats from the straw.

And “H” for the ache to see my father plowing fields again—
the silhouette of a red tractor and a man, one hand
on the wheel, the other waving free.

 

Notice how the first four tercets are all one sentence, a breathless homage to, of all things, a tractor. Notice how, like many good poems, this poem has a “turn,” specifically in the last stanza, a new sentence, where Sutphen shifts to the gist of things: namely, the man on the machine, who counts as much as the machine itself.

An homage to a machine, yes; but an elegy to a man as well—her father, who seemed a part of the machine given how often he sat “on a throne in kingdoms of oats / and corn, scrolling along the meadow’s edge.”

That ache mentioned in the last stanza was the raison d’être for this poem, no doubt—something every good poem has. A catalyst. An emotional spark. The fire that makes readers warm to it.

Ah, the Writer’s Life!

poetry writing

largesse

Reading Denis Johnson’s farewell story collection, Largesse of the Sea Maiden, last night, I came across this paragraph — in the short story “Triumph Over the Grave” (editor’s note: If only!) — about the writer’s life. Well, a fictional writer’s life, but you see what matches and what doesn’t:

“Writing. It’s easy work. The equipment isn’t expensive, and you can pursue this occupation anywhere. You make your own hours, mess around the house in your pajamas, listening to jazz recordings and sipping coffee while another day makes its escape. You don’t have to be high-functioning or even, for the most part, functioning at all. If I could drink liquor without being drunk all the time, I’d certainly drink enough to be drunk half the time, and production wouldn’t suffer. Bouts of poverty come along, anxiety, shocking debt, but nothing lasts forever. I’ve gone from rags to riches and back again, and more than once. Whatever happens to you, you put it on a page, work it into a shape, cast it in a light. It’s not much different, really, from filming a parade of clouds across the sky and calling it a movie — although it has to be admitted that the clouds can descend, take you up, carry you to all kinds of places, some of them terrible, and you don’t get back where you came from for years and years.”

KEY:

“Writing. It’s easy work.” (See “Irony” in your handbooks.)

Equipment inexpensive, pursue occupation anywhere. (See “True comma that.”)

“You… mess around the house in your pajamas.” (See “If you’re still 12, maybe.”)

“…listening to jazz recordings” (See “Jukebox selections may vary and DO….”)

“…and sipping coffee” (See “Amen!” and “Awomen!” to that!)

“If you could drink liquor without being drunk…” (See “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in the Judy Garland Wing)

“…nothing lasts forever” (See the Buddha nodding sagely — the only way he can.)

“Whatever happens to you, you put it on a page…” (Or squire, or knight… no, just kidding. This is another way of saying “Write what you know,” but you can write what you don’t know just as easily.)

“…clouds can descend, take you up…” (See “Ali comma Baba” in carpeting on the mezzanine.)

I don’t know about you, but I like reading about reading, and I like reading about writing, so a final tip of the hat to Denis. Thanks for the memories, kid. You knew your way around a sentence. A paragraph, too. What more could a writer — or reader — ask for?

I’m Somebody. Who Are You?

poetry reading poetry

Go ahead. Name Emily Dickinson’s most famous poem. Chances are 10 in 10 that you will choose “I’m Nobody,” a.k.a. “260” in the canon.

Go ahead again. Name Emily Dickinson’s best poem. Chances are 10 in 10 again that you will choose anything but “I’m Nobody” (unless you’re still in your teen years, in which case, I can sympathize, trust me).

What is it about this poem that scratches people’s itch? First, let’s take a look at one of the versions. Word for word, some versions diverge, but capitals for capitals, commas for commas, and especially dashes for dashes? Almost all do. It’s the Dickinson way.

 

I’m Nobody
by Somebody named Emily Dickinson

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish us — you know!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one’s name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

 

First of all, the “you” in the first stanza, though read as a singular “you,” is in truth a plural “you.” And the quip “Then there’s a pair of us”? A lie of the first order. There are a gazillion of us!

Here Emily has tapped into humankind’s natural tendency for solipsism. Secretly or not (especially if you are an “adult”), the world revolves around us. We all pity ourselves. After all, we’ve been practicing the craft since we were children at our mother’s indifferent knee. Poor, poor us! Us nobodies, that is.

And stanza two? It is the “Who Are We Kidding?” stanza. “How dreary to be somebody,” as in famous, as in rich, and in — better yet — both. The reason we find it dreary is because we haven’t experienced it and resent those who have. Naturally, then, the psychology of humans is to lean scornful (and pay no attention to that green-eyed monster behind the curtain!).

That’s right, many of the “nobodies” who read this poem and cheer it all the way to the “man, that was quick!” finish line wish they were frogs shopping the latest bogs (or, at the very least, renovating them on HGTV).

So, if you want to write a viral poem, one that will grab the world by the lapels, play dumb and pretend to ignore what you truly want. Knock it before you try it, in other words. In stanzas. End rhymes optional.

Signed, Yet Another Somebody-in-Waiting (translation in Amherst-ese: “Nobody”)

 

***

 

Summer Reading for Nobody in Particular

Blurb Me This (A Modest Proposal)

blathering comma mine opinion poetry poetry books

As a kid, I can remember reading the backs and sides of cereal boxes as I chomped down unhealthy bowls of sugar-laced cereal (thank you, Kellogg’s and Post!). Nowadays, I do the same for books that are lying around—even after I’ve finished reading them.

You know what THAT means. It means I read the equivalent of sugar-laced ingredients on the backs of poetry books: blurbs. Only if you dig a little do you often learn that blurbs are written by a poet’s teachers or fellow university workers or fellow alums.

But what else is new? You scratch my back, I scratch yours, and why not? What really gets you is the similarity of so many blurbs, the way they are obviously a pain in the neck to the person who was asked to WRITE them.

This can be discovered by the simple formula known as A=#Ls (Aggravation = the Number of “Luminous’s”). If your blurbs are so luminous they glow gaudily like Christmas lights on a July night, your book is as sweet a Tony Tiger’s Sugar-Frosted Flakes.

Nowhere is this worse than in a poetry book that actually uses the word “luminous” in its title. I give you Czeslaw Milosz’s A Book of Luminous Things. As you might expect, the blurb from The Houston Chronicle on the back reads, “A luminous anthology about luminous thoughts and things.”

Hoo, boy. Houston, we have a problem.

Other words we need to watch out for: “stunning,” “rare,” “unforgettable,” “breathtaking,” “fierce,” “remarkable,” “memorable,” “profound,” “arresting,” “evocative,” and, of course, “beauty” and “achievement.” For example:

“Jane Hirshfield is one of our finest, most memorable contemporary poets.” — David Baker

“Scrupulously attentive, rigorously self-questioning, What the Living Do is an achievement of remarkable power.” — Mark Doty

“The landscape of Tranströmer’s poetry… is mirrored by his direct, plain-speaking style and arresting, unforgettable images.” — Robin Robertson

“Tomasz Rozycki’s Colonies is one of the most remarkable sonnet sequences of our time…” — Susan Stewart

“Another breathtaking collection…” — Booklist

“I’m stunned by the power of these poems…” — Marie Howe

Pity the blurb writer, asked by a friend or colleague to compose a blurb using a Blurb Dictionary of Words that is only three pages long. Talk about a challenge!

Why not dispense with blurbs entirely, then? Why not let the reader (or shopper in a bookstore) consider each work a tabula rasa? As a teacher, I prefer not hearing the previous grade’s teachers’ thoughts on any given student. I prefer to arrive at my own conclusions. See me for a blurb in October, in other words–one written by me.

Wouldn’t this be a luminous way of doing things? Stunningly fierce and fair? A memorably profound shift in how things are done in the publishing world?

Be remarkable. Say yes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choosing Poems for a Poetry Reading

Lost Sherpa of Happiness my poems poetry poetry readings The Indifferent World

When you first begin the task of choosing poems for a poetry reading, it’s like walking into a grocery store’s cereal aisle where the choices are so vast they overwhelm the shopper.

In the case of poetry, do you choose funny poems or contemplative poems, fancy poems or simple poems, poems with sound devices or ones with narrative merits? Maybe a little of everything, you might advise, but a lot rides on the locale and the audience.

For me, tonight, the venue is a public library — a place that I hope will host many events like this in the future. Anyway, here’s the line-up card for tonight’s reading along with a little bit of the reasoning behind it:

  1. “Provide, Provide” (from The Indifferent World)   Like Frost, whose title I borrowed, I write a lot about nature. This is a nice, solid, short poem to reflect that.
  2. “Simplicity”  (from The Indifferent World)  From Frost, I will move to another icon who has influenced by work, Henry David Thoreau. This poem pays homage to an important concept in his book Walden.
  3. “Return of the Native”  (from The Indifferent World)   A little twist for #3, this work is straight out of the imagination — one that couples ghosts with a whaler captain’s house along the New England shoreline. You know they’re in there!
  4.  “Mrs. Galway Goes to Night School”  (from The Indifferent World)   By poem #4, the crowd will be ready for a little narrative poem about a school bus driver going to night school for Irish Literature. James Joyce, this one’s for you! And Mom, you, too!
  5. “Barnstorming the Universe” (from The Indifferent World)   Back to the imagination, this one’s a fanciful work based on a Maine barn that looks like it experienced a crash landing from outer space. It’s a real barn, one I run by each summer morning. A postcard poem, then, with hyperbole for a return address.
  6. “An Old Man Walking Dawn’s Borders (from Lost Sherpa of Happiness)  This is my “dark horse” choice — the kind of poem you wouldn’t initially think of reading, but then, the more you look at it, the more you say, “Why not? I feel kind of sorry for this old man. Let’s share his story by giving him a mic!”
  7. “Into the Urban” (from Lost Sherpa of Happiness)   Ready for a memory poem? Memories are one of the most valuable resources a poet has at his disposal. This one takes readers to the city of Hartford, CT, when I was a kid visiting my great-grandparents’ apartment.
  8. “When Babcia Caught Her Breath” (from Lost Sherpa of Happiness)   From the city to a Maine lake, and my how time flies, as this one concerns my grandmother visiting the wilds of Maine for the first time. The whole poem was built on the last line, which were words she actually said — ones that I will never forget.
  9. “Lost Sherpa of Happiness” (from Lost Sherpa of Happiness)   The title poem tips its simple hat to Buddhism, which, along with Taoism, has influenced a lot of my work. If listeners like it, they’ll know there is plenty more where this came from.
  10. BONUS POEM (from Lost Sherpa of Happiness)  I have a few ready if time allows, but I’m sharing the mic with two other poets, so time will be a taskmaster laying down some discipline — always a good thing.

 

Hey. I’ll let you know how it goes!

 

Constructing Some Deconstruction, Derrida-Like

poetry poetry books

Yesterday I sent my message in two bottles to mentors-in-waiting Marie and Naomi (there’s a poem right there!). And, via the comments section, my good virtual friend, Carter, alerted me that I had stumbled upon a winner when I picked up Carrie Fountain’s book, Burn Lake.

For reasons I cannot fathom, the proof is always in the pudding (which we never eat in this household). Carter, a champion of the journal American Poetry Review, let me know that the latest issue offered up three coins, all of them Fountain’s.

A little research, and I discovered one of the three was posted live on the Net. It’s called “The Student”, and requires more than a passing familiarity with Jacques Derrida, some French philosopher or other famous for deconstruction. And although I am no philosopher, I do know a thing or two about deconstruction, having had more than one of my  seaside sand castles destroyed by my older brother—this after hours and hours of construction on my part.

You see? Philosophy is easy. But it might not help you understand “The Student.” My suggestion is that you read it, then read it again. In time, your “ah’s” will begin to construct “hah’s!” and thus are Joycean epiphanies made.

Meanwhile, what started the whole discussion: I started the 2009 National Poetry Series winner Burn Lake last night. Apparently there are a series of Burn Lake poems within it. Here’s the first, which appeared in Poetry:

“Burn Lake” by Carrie Fountain
For Burn Construction Company

 

When you were building the I-10 bypass,
one of   your dozers, moving earth
at the center of a great pit,
slipped its thick blade beneath
the water table, slicing into the earth’s
wet palm, and the silt moistened
beneath the huge thing’s tires, and the crew
was sent home for the day.
Next morning, water filled the pit.
Nothing anyone could do to stop it coming.
It was a revelation: kidney-shaped, deep
green, there between the interstate
and the sewage treatment plant.
When nothing else worked, you called it
a lake and opened it to the public.
And we were the public.

 

And here’s “Burn Lake 2,” the sequel, cooler still (if lakes be cool, and they do, at least up north):

 

“Burn Lake 2” by Carrie Fountain

All afternoon I’ve been swimming out
to the deepest part of the lake
and sinking down as far as I can
because for a long time now
I’ve wanted to feel dead and alive
at the same time
and for whatever reason I believe
this is the way to do it. So far,
it’s impossible to feel dead.
Instead, when I reach the cold sheets
of water toward the bottom of the lake
all the lights go on inside my body
and my legs pump, and before long
I see the determined lines the sun makes
on the surface of the water, and I reach
the living world again, the thin limbs
of the salt cedar wagging at the shoreline,
the wuzz of traffic on the interstate,
and my mother, far off, reading a paperback
on a little shelf of sand, smoking
one of those long , brown cigarettes
she slips in one sublime gesture
from out of a clicking leather case.
There is something that keeps
occurring to me in the moment I break
the water, though by the time I take a breath
I’ve forgotten what it was.

 

Strong finish, that. Subtle finish, too. A nice mix. A “how did she do that?” mix. Maybe Marie, Naomi, or Carrie herself can comment. Maybe they even will.

Meanwhile, back to swimming my own poetic lakes….

Dear Marie and Naomi: Want to Read Some Poems?

poetry reading poetry

 

Every year, the National Poetry Series out of Princeton (I hear they have a college) stages an open competition for outstanding poetry manuscripts. To enter, it costs 30 bucks, and the submission period takes place from New Year’s Day to the end of February.

Though I’ve never entered, one thing that I like about the contest is that it is judged blindly. Top poets, the final readers, don’t know who wrote what. Submitting poets are not allowed to provide biographical info, a table of contents, an acknowledgments page, nothing.

St. Billy of Collins says this about the National Poetry Series: “I know of no program more vital to the launching of a poet’s career than The National Poetry Series. For over 30 years, 5 poets annually have enjoyed the immense benefit of having their manuscripts transformed into handsome books by some of the most prestigious publishers in the country. Measured by these hard, practical results alone, the Series deserves the support of every devotee of poetry. My own Questions About Angels, selected by Edward Hirsch in 1990, marked the true beginning of my public life in poetry.”

Which brings me to the reason I am writing this: Yesterday I checked Carrie Fountain’s Burn Lake out of the library and am looking forward to reading it this week. It had a big stamp on the cover that read “WINNER, National Poetry Series, Selected by Natasha Trethewey,” which made me curious (and you already know I’m the curious type).

As is true with every poetry book I read, I first count the number of poems (here it’s 48) and then look at the acknowledgments page for marketing possibilities (here it includes AGNI, Ascent, Borderlands Texas Poetry Review, Cave Wall, Cimarron Review, Crazy Horse, cream city review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Marlboro Review, The Missouri Review, Southwestern American Review, Swink, and The Texas Observer).

Finally, I look at the “Thanks” entries. In the case of Carrie Fountain’s once-anonymous manuscript, thanks were extended “for help with this manuscript” to Marie Howe (!) and Naomi Shihab Nye (!). In Nye’s case, Fountain wrote, “My deepest gratitude to my teacher and friend Naomi Nye.”

Gulp. This once-anonymous manuscript forwarded into an open competition clearly had some high-octane help! Which makes me wonder, “Outside of signing up for an MFA, which is tough to do when you have a FTJ (full-time job), what can I do to improve my new poetry manuscript’s chances for the big-time?”

Such a rhetorical question! I haven’t signed on for any teachers, is what I can do, and should do if I decide to pony up 30 bucks for the 2019 competition and want to give it a Kentucky Derby’s chance (I’ll take the outside post, even) by having some very cool poets like Marie and/or Naomi give feedback first.

So this is an open letter to you, Marie and Naomi. No, it’s not anonymous, but I know that neither of you will be readers for the 2019 competition, so it’s all good. No worries.

Drop me a line! Take in a poem or two (I know you’re busy, so one or two will do)! Teach me things!

Winsomely,

Me

Swinging for the Fences

marketing poetry poetry writing poetry

Marketing poetry isn’t simple math. It’s a word problem. You show your work, and the teacher in you is either satisfied or not.

Lately I have yearned for more, meaning the math has shifted such that I am studying that old Indian concept of zero. That’s right. No longer satisfied with placing poems in this journal or that, I’ve taken to swinging for the fences: Poetry, The New Yorker, The Atlantic… any well-known and lofty (by poetry journal standards) outfit that pays.

Pointing to the wall as you step to the plate (á la Babe Ruth) means two things: long waits and short rejection notes. The major leagues mean major competition. Spots are precious few, and many are taken by insiders and “members of the club.”

Still, periodically, over-the-transom types sneak through, cut lines, find a way. It’s that blind lottery ticket mentality: “It could happen to me!”

But, wait. Isn’t lack of publication leading to lack of readership? What’s a poem without a reader (ancient Buddhist koan)?

Like a diet (erm… “lifestyle change”), you actually get used to it after a while. The silence becomes an affirmation of sorts. Your resolution is moving along as planned. You’re hearing from major markets every 8 to 12 months, as if time is not of the essence, as if you will live long enough to see this submission of five poems through “school” (read: 5-10 markets).

It’s like meditation: the lack of publication in this journal in Obscura, Illinois, or that journal in Arcana, Indiana, is OK. The “om” of “zero” feels good. I just focus on my breathing and write. And revise. And write. And revise. And write….